If only all graffiti was as inspiring. hehe

kosbee

@chemical_eng_mx: A pic of that mario piece I have but that rock monster one I didn't get a chance to get I got my new camera the day that mario went up. sorry :-(

mangomonkeyboy

Is this a new Banksy? ;)

Garo

@Derigor: Like TBA crew from the 70's and 80's NYC type bombing. Or, "painting" or "spray painting" if you will. I'm more of a multi layer stencil and space spray type of guy. Although multi layer stencils with no underspray is a pain in the ass.

Eville1

Is Mario doing a Hadouken?

godrifle

Is this casual tagging or hardcore? I cant tell anymore!

mizzle

@Eville1: bombing? like the midnight bomber who bombs at midnight? or like oklahoma city bombing?

I agree building bombs and blowing shit up (not yourself) takes way more skill than spray painting. Course my wife has awesome spray painting skills, she's always painting my modded nerf guns for me, no over spray. totally impressive.

Derigor

Now that is really awesome, but wouldn't Jet Set Radio have been more appropriate?

Where I live, the only graffiti is '[Name] woz ere 08', with the '0' as a crosshair. I really do wish we had better graffiti artists, that strike back at the Rokkaku Group to fight the outlawing of freedom of speech with their art.

Krondonian

@mangomonkeyboy: Tell me you have a pic of that orhave a link to ine, please...

chemical_eng_mx

Piecing is and always will be more of a skill than tagging any day of the week. Bombers put hours into the designs before they even go up and at least twice as much time as that to actually do them. Add poor lighting conditions (easier to get away with at night, and to get away if you have to run.) and often difficult to reach places and you have my utmost respect.

..Yeah I did one of my design finals on bombing. I've never done anything even close to this level though.

Eville1

@King of Kings: yeah the 'graffiti' down here in sofla sucks. I don't care about your made up name/girls in short skirts. Or any of the other crap they put up.

nyaz

way to go video games....gamers and artist FTW!!

Jnkzm4

Looks good but its only a matter of time before some losers goes and mess the thing up with their "own tags" to "represent" their "hood"/"cred". Is that too many " " on my part? Anyway, Im always reminded of other art projects ruined by several petty taggers.

deathsyth8888

Word!

Shiryu

I usually don't condone graffiti or vandalizing private property but I much rather see this than the typical graffiti you see out in the streets. Especially here in South Florida.

Positive and nonviolent. Very nice.

King of Kings

Where is this at?

goaliegeek

this pic is hyper awesome...
kotaku

steliosco

Its on the 101 in Los Angeles by the 4th Street Exit

mangomonkeyboy

Thats an overnighter job. I pass by that everyday to work. It was a rock monster shadow of the colossus thing before. Thats been up for about a month now.

mangomonkeyboy

Where's this at?

goaliegeek

@karasu is my homeboy: Definitely not completed in an hour overnight...

That Sister piece is slick. And whichever one of those kids did the Mario character - nice job.

mtvernon

That is impressive.Some talented people out there.

enewtabie

That's awesome!

AndrewG009

that's super nice

NES8bt

Pretty cool, where is this?

gils0n

I wonder if this was done in like an hour over night or if it was a long ongoing project for this vandal we are now giving internet-wide acknowledgment and pride to.

It is a cool picture.

karasu is my homeboy

What city is this in?

PENI_MASTA

the clouds aren't different from the bushes... noobs

seriously though. that is pretty sick

tsukihimeblood

wow! that's pretty damn impressive. quite colourful to boot!

Desfunk

@KaneRobot: Yeah, the JGR theme song immediately entered me head when I saw this.

Very cool piece, if that was done to my property I'd almost not mind.

City41

Very cool. Well done anonymous artist!

2NinjasTapedTogether

@mangomonkeyboy:

What he said.

scrappy

I miss the Jet Set Radio series :(

KaneRobot

That is in Los Angeles just off of (if i remember correctly) the 5 freeway.

scrappy

They need to port over JSR to the Wii. Imagine spraying Mario Bros. characters on the walls. 'Twould be pure awesome.

Furysetzer

That is incredible. I wish i could see it in person...

jslay012

Looks more like a nice piece marred by some asshat tagger.

Ex_EA_Slave

@mangomonkeyboy: Thanks. I was hoping it was L.A. I'm going to go check that out.

PENI_MASTA

@scrappy:

It is on the 101 as previously stated, but it is very close to the 5 interchange. I saw it on the way back from Disneyland last weekend and was wondering when it would make an appearance here.

jkanownik

@godrifle: mario is spraying painting the artist tag or some other writing

ashstampede

Haha, I drove past during Spring Break. I noticed it too late to take a picture though.

DotDotDot

@Ex_EA_Slave: looks more like someone doesn't appreciate good art when they see it.

CreateTheTruth

@mangomonkeyboy:

yeah..i just saw it last month when i was stuck in l.a. traffic.

qBIRD

That was done by a crew. Looks like 3 artists. Also, tags are defined by using only 1 or 2 colors. I'm pretty sure that mural is called a 'burner' or something like that. Anyway, as far as street art and graffiti goes; it's not as impressive as some other pieces I've seen.

GunSavior

gamers of the world get up!

EDread83

In a society built on individualism and inequality, it is inevitable that people are going to vandalize and steal things that don't belong to them.

I_fit_in

i just wanna point out that this isn't a "tag" and thus its not "tagging" and the person is not a "tagger" theres diff. terms used in graffiti, a tag is generally a quick scrible of an artists name. this is a "piece" which makes sense since its a piece of art.

pandafresh

Games are creating vandalism now! When will it stop consuming our very fabric of society?!

Jac21

Here is map of where I believe it is.
[maps.google.com]
Street view taken before the art went up.

chdir

@pandafresh:

Sorry dude I dont make a habit of correcting ...but I think people misunderstand what a tag is....When you see a scribble of black paint it's not a tag it's a "toy" or a "trick" a tag to a true graffiti artist is a whole piece of work envolving the artist name.

repoman123

"Thug life, Mario, reppin' the Mushroom Kingdom"

Oh, Jesus Christ. Can't I come to a post that somehow has something to even barelydo with hip-hop/urban culture without hearing about thugs and gangsters? Seriously, man. There's nothing "thug" about graffiti, it's just graffiti. I'm surprised no one made a comment about Mario "poppin' a cap".

enigma89

This looks like a legal or production wall to me, As in they got permission from the owner to paint. There is no paint made by man that can be rolled on and painted over in such a short period of time (One night?). They had to prime the wall or at least roll on the base coat for the sky background. Not to mention they most likely used ladders and judging from the colors used they had to wait for paint to dry before they could continue at some point... But what do I know? I'm just a New York City Vandal :P

BurnerAzR

@BurnerAzR: I think the guy or guys that did it own that lil spot there. On the other sides of the trailers and the building next to it there are a few other quick pieces on those walls. As for an overnight job I remember that mario piece being up on a tuesday morning when the day before it was a different mural, that's why I'm pretty sure it was an overnighter.

mangomonkeyboy

That's funny - I drive by this every evening on the way home from work.

I was contemplating submitting a picture of it last week, but am always in a rush to get home mood.

There is a cool looking chicken on the other side of it too. I think the building behind it is something art-related..

Rondogg

Awesome, I saw that when I visited LA for Spring Break. I have a pic on my phone when I was passing by it.

Rogue Justice

Comment on Mysterious Tag Virtuoso Creates Mario Homage Yeah... I would've submitted this a lot sooner. All my friends kept telling me to do so. If you look at my original posting of the photo on my DA account: http://neogreatfox.deviantart.com/art/Mario-the-tagger-85049890 You'll see the picture was taken more than a month ago on March 25th. Oddly, it's still there, untouched by the hoodlums. Anyone that drives down that patch of highway knows how badly tagged up the place is. It gets me so mad everyday when I drive by there to and from work. This is the only thing there that brings a smile to my face. I wish there was more constructive "Street Art" like this near by. OH... and since everyone keeps asking, yes, its on the connector from the 101 to the I-5. Luckily traffic is horrible in LA so I was driving by slowly enough to have time to whip out my iPhone and snap the photo.

VasinSanny

I've always liked graffiti. Not vandalism, mind you, but real expression of art. Any clown can write his name on a wall, but to actually create something meaningful is a whole other story. Even though it's still technically illegal, I've always though the law should look the other way in cases like this.

Benguin

...and I apologize for incorrectly using the term tagging in my previous post. I saw the corrections after I posted. :)

Adam In Texas

@Krondonian: Hahah, sounds like you live around me.

OK, I seriously doubt you live around me but for those familiar with the Hudson Oaks/Weatherford/Mineral Wells area you might have seen that huge rock on 180 that the country folk use for tagging. It is total amateur hour and with the "XXX woz ere 08'" things. I think people can even pay to paint it. Recently it had a small dinosaur-like thing on it that almost looked like an attempt at the Puzzle Bobble character but that is the closest thing to a video game reference I've seen.

Adam In Texas

@Garo: Word, man. I was about to tell people to check Bansky's stuff out, then I saw your comment.

If you people like this definitely look up Bansky he's done some good thought provoking stuff. All graffiti and over night too. Sometimes...

Word Man

Banksy is pretty much a badass. That CCTV thing he just did was all kinds of great.

Trekka

one of the artists involved is a man that goes by the name of 'cache.' I think the crew is K4B? I dont remember...but cache has a myspace, [profile.myspace.com]

hope that works. his stuff is sweet. very different than the average graf artiste.

mutantshark

There is so much retard in this thread it's painful.

"Bombing is only defined as two colors" "Is this hardcore tagging or casual tagging"
"Is this the new Banksy"?

Just stop, please.

Oh, and stop saying "tagging".

It's cool because of its mario theme, but the letter structure is lacking.

It's cool, I like it, but you guys about to nut about this being "great super graffiti hardcore tagging painters" are embarrassing.

BostonK

@mutantshark you are correct, this is k4p & mak crews; biser, mandoe and cache are the artists. up on cache's myspace. real hot. real art.

@bostonK you also are correct.

and to all who mentioned banksy, check blek le rat. banksy is more well known, but admits his ideas were done 10+ yrs ago by blek. get your learn on.

timebombtimmy

@repoman123:

hmm..hmm...no. Tag is a signature, a toy is generally used to refer to a person who sucks at graffiti. i mean its usually asshole elitists using it, but still. browse online, you'll see.

pandafresh

Anyone else notice the blatant Galaxian/Galaga reference? Top right? anyone?

bunz0rz

mangomonkeyboy's earlier comment regarding the location was correct.

I found it on Street View.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like Mario when the Googlemobile drove through. :(

jesterspawn

One of the earlier commenters said it was on the 101 near the 4th Street exit.

He was right. I found it on Streetview:
Click and see.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like Mario when the Googlemobile drove through. :(

jesterspawn